What makes food posh?

smiles302

Just out of interest, if you were to throw a posh dinner party what would you cook?

A friend of mine (very fun, but a tries to keep up with the Jones' kind of person) asked me to cook something posh the other day to "prove that I can cook".

When I think "posh" I think smoked salmon, alcohol laden food or general "adult" food.

I have Paul Flynn's The Tannery Cookbook so handed her that to pick something and she was pissed there were no pictures...
I asked her what posh food was and she said stuff with posh ingredients like spring onions...

So posh not fancy food... People can be so strange when it comes to food choices

So if you were throwing a posh dinner party for say your 12 year old daughter what kind of dishes would you cook?

The Hill Billy

smiles302 wrote: »

I asked her what posh food was and she said stuff with posh ingredients like spring onions...

PMSL! Make your pal beans on toast & garnish it with parsley.

Seriously though, classic dishes such as beef wellington or duck a l'orange may possibly be considered 'posh'. But presentation of food & table setting can also give the appearance of 'poshness'.

Best of luck with this one...

Minder

This gave me a bit of a laugh - lobster thermidor is common but crab is posh? Also her definition of posh is anything that is hard to cook - oxtail and sweetbreads? Whats hard about cooking oxtail? Sweetbreads may be a little fiddly but there apparent rarity makes them posh? Also offal cooked on its own is common but offal included in a plate of other cuts is posh? How does that work?

How posh is your nosh?Etiquette expert Mary Killen has the lowdown
How could some foods be 'common' and others 'posh'? Just as with clothing, houses and cars, anything that smacks of trying too hard will compromise status. These are symptoms of insecurity or of trying to cover something up. In chicken nuggets, for example, we are spared the reality of the chicken's carcass. This is dishonest and therefore common.

As is:

Anything on an oval plate

Anything where the cook seems to have tried too hard or with too many ingredients or stacking

Any dish made easy to 'feed' from rather than eat from, ie without cutlery while watching television

Anything not in season

Anything microwaved

Quartered tomatoes, particularly serrated and particularly not in salad

Onion rings

All potatoes in non-recognisable shapes such as croquette, oven chips and above all Smash

Minted lamb

The word 'cereal'. It should be 'cornflakes' whether they are or not

Farmed fish (particularly salmon)

All fish not in recognisable fish shapes (however, posh children eat fish fingers every day)

Trout with almonds

Lemon wedges (the word) not the actual lemon quarter

Crisps

Sprigs of parsley as a garnish (either use a lot of flat-leafed parsley in the dish itself or none at all). Ditto paper hats on rack of lamb or radishes in the shape of flowers

Salad cream

The word 'meal'

Cheesecake and other mucked-about food such as apple strudel

Home-made cappuccino with non-dairy aerosol 'cream'

Sweetcorn off the cob

White pepper unless with cockles

Philadelphia with breadsticks

Meat stuffed and tied up with string

Thick marmalade, particularly if not home-made

Lobster thermidor

Fresh meat bought for curry (leftover meat should always be used)

The word 'nibbles'

Posh: U food

Very grand food is not only food that is difficult to come by (home-grown vegetables or fruit and hand-bagged game ) but also anything difficult to cook and that would make a non-U person shudder, eg sweetbreads or oxtail, such as:

All fruits and vegetables in season, ideally home-grown

Cold pea soup/nettle soup/gazpacho

Game in season, particularly grouse at beginning of season

Partridge is the top game bird/ptarmigan/ortolan

Your own free-range chickens

Venison

Sweetbreads

Pig's trotters

Brains

Oxtail

Hare (German recipe)

Properly mature mutton

Fry-ups (because honest)

Gulls' eggs with celery salt

Oysters

Any fish with head on which has been gutted by person cooking it

Wild salmon (telltale colour is grey rather than farmed-salmon pink)

Whitebait

Potted shrimps

Crab

Lobster with fresh mayonnaise

Sea bass

Halibut

Turnips, swedes, parsnips

Sweetcorn on the cob

Beetroot

Riced potato

Baked pears

Home-made custard

Baked bananas

Eton Mess (meringue, double cream, raspberries or strawberries)

Bread-and-butter pudding

Rice pudding

Junket

Black chocolate

Local cheddar

Oatcakes

Sage-and-anchovy canapés

Tinned food. Most tinned food is common but some exceptions include: rice pudding, pineapple chunks, corned-beef hash

Home-made mayonnaise

Mustard made from Colman's powder, never ready-mixed

Honey-ec

Oh. My. God. I actually had to stop reading that about halfway down. The word "meal" is common???

Mary Killen, whoever you are, you may be an etiquette "expert", but you are severely lacking in the most basic understanding of manners.

ETA: Ortolan. Vomit. I guarantee you she has never, ever eaten one.

Brian?

Anything involving Foie gras. Nom nom nom.

Adhamh

The price.


No, but seriously, the ability to carefully interpret traditional methods so that the meal on your plate is almost a cultural artifact of 1930's Naples.

watna

In what way are spring onions posh? Is it because she used the words spring onions and not scallions? Bizarre!

Little Alex

Tying stuff, such as asparagus, in bundles for presentation is posh, as is stacking thick-cut chips in a scaffold form. The "bundle" of asparagus or carrot batons is a Come Dine With Me regular and never quite works out for the home chef. :pac: And of course the sprig of mint on dessert... which I used myself before, but only because I had some left over from something else.

Perhaps Lobster Thermidor is considered somewhat vulgar by this Mary Killen?

For me "proper posh" is a cheeseboard instead of sweet dessert.

The Sweeper

No no - not just stacking thick cut chips in a scaffold... Stacking thick cut chips made of polenta in a scaffold. That's posh.

smiles302

Corn on the cob is posh??

That list is brilliant! Hilarious as I don't think she'd eat anything on the posh list.. as she won't eat fish.

Might end up doing chicken, chips and ketchip (Poulet et des frites avec sauce rouge... totally sounds posh...) Put it in a salad bowl and voila

FTGFOP

Whatever one's butler brings one.

Little Alex

The Sweeper wrote: »

No no - not just stacking thick cut chips in a scaffold... Stacking thick cut chips made of polenta in a scaffold. That's posh.

Oh yeah, I forgot about them. I had a side of them only recently in The Rustic Stone. They weren't bad considering that I'm not a polenta fan.

FTGFOP wrote: »

Whatever one's butler brings one.

Yes, quite. Anyone for Pimm's?

Oh_Noes

Cut your sandwiches in triangles instead of rectangles. Your friend will think you're Lady Muck.

Little Alex

Oh_Noes wrote: »

Cut your sandwiches in triangles instead of rectangles. Your friend will think you're Lady Muck.

Cucumber and watercress sandwiches, sans those ghastly, uncouth crusts. :pac: